


she is the storm

by holtzbabe



Series: she is the storm [1]
Category: Ghostbusters (2016)
Genre: Cuddles, F/F, Snow Storms, This fic has it all!, Traffic Jams, gratuitous familial headcanons, this is the fluffiest damn fic i've written in months
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-18
Updated: 2018-11-18
Packaged: 2019-08-25 05:52:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16655440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/holtzbabe/pseuds/holtzbabe
Summary: Erin and Holtz get stuck in traffic during a snowstorm.





	she is the storm

**Author's Note:**

> Yesterday morning I got stuck in a way-more-snow-than-anyone-was-prepared-for snowstorm and spent two hours trapped on the bus trying to get to work, and I wanted to write a short thing based off that experience. Then I discovered that the EXACT SAME SCENARIO happened on Thursday afternoon in NYC! Probably the same damn storm moving up the east coast tbh. Anyway they got 6.4 inches there and it was the second-snowiest day on record for October or November and nobody at all was prepared for it and it caused a traffic nightmare, much like here. So there ya go! This fic is henceforth set on Nov 15th, 2018 and is completely plausible! Love when that happens

Nine times out of ten, only two of them go on a call at a time. This is for several reasons: firstly, they’re professionals and don’t _need_ four of them to take down one ghost; secondly, this leaves two of them at the firehouse should anything happen; and thirdly, it’s more fun when all four of them aren’t fighting each other to be the one to capture and/or destroy the entity in question. They’re very competitive.

They usually have to flip a coin to decide which two get to take a call and which two are forced to stay home and miss the fun, but today it’s the opposite. None of them want to be the one to go today.

It’s been snowing heavily all afternoon, and the roads are a mess. It’s only mid-November, and the sudden (and poorly-predicted) snowstorm has taken everyone by surprise.

But ghosts don’t give a shit about the weather, and they’ve received a call about a particularly nasty-sounding apparition that’s currently doing major damage to a personal residence in the Upper East Side. The main factor in their decision to go was the owner’s _generous_ financial offer for same-day bustin’. Abby, always one to bargain, invents a snow charge that layers on an extra several hundred dollars, and they all agree that they need to make this happen.

They flip a coin as per usual, and Erin and Holtz have the displeasure of being the ones that have to go.

“Have fun,” Patty says, already queuing up a documentary on Netflix from where she’s stretched on the couch. “Don’t die out there.”

“Your concern for our well-being is charming as always, Patricia,” Holtz says.

Erin just groans as she twists her thick hand-knitted scarf around her neck like a noose.

 

They load up the Ecto with their gear as fast as they can, and then sit in the garage with the engine running for several minutes, trying to warm up the car as best as they can. It doesn’t have traditional heaters because Holtz isn’t too keen on heating up a car that’s basically a nuclear reactor, so it’s hard to get the inside to a passable temperature.

When Holtz is satisfied, she opens the garage door.

Instantly, the wind gusts a flurry of snow into the garage, already obstructing their vision. Holtz turns the wipers on and inches forward.

She doesn’t make it far. The entire street is at a standstill.

“Don’t think the sirens will help us out much today,” Holtz muses.

Erin cranes her head to look out the window and rubs her hands together, trying to warm them up. “Holy crap. It’s _really_ coming down out here. What the hell. It’s way too early in the year for this.”

“It’s Snovember,” Holtz says cheerfully. She hums to herself, drumming her thumbs on the steering wheel, continuing to inch out of the driveway.

It takes them five minutes just to clear the curb, which is already a warning sign. She noses the Ecto into the line of cars, one of them mercifully letting them merge in (possibly because they recognize the car, although with the snow coming down so heavily, it wouldn’t be surprising if the white car blended right in).

Another five minutes pass. They manage to fully merge. They’re still moving about a foot a minute.

Holtz checks her watch. “Do we wanna place bets on how long this drive will take us?”

Erin checks her own watch. “What time did we leave?”

“3:07pm,” Holtz says.

“This trip would take, what, half an hour on a normal day?”

“Less, if I had the sirens on,” Holtz reminds her. She can cut through traffic like nobody’s business.

“Fine,” Erin allows. She squints through the window. “Umm…an hour?”

“Erin. Come on. We’ve already been gone fifteen minutes and we’re still in front of the firehouse.”

“An hour and a half?”

“You’re so conservative. I’m calling it: five hours.”

“ _Five_ _hours?”_

Holtz gestures wildly out the window. “You could get out, go inside, make us coffee, and come back before I’d even moved.” She hesitates. “Actually, that’s not a bad idea.”

“I’m not going out in that,” Erin says.

“Alriiiight.”

 

They continue to inch along. Holtz fiddles with the radio. She modified it ages ago and now it no longer broadcasts any news stations, but it does pick up a bizarre station from Connecticut that she can’t quite figure out how to shake off. It’s currently playing whale calls.

Erin’s fingers are pressed to her temple. “Do we have to listen to this?”

“This is traditional caught-in-a-snow-storm music, Erin.”

“This is _whales.”_

Another ten minutes pass. They make it to the end of the block. The intersection at Hudson has cars stuck in the middle of it.

“We could play I-Spy,” Holtz suggests. “I’ll go first. I spy with my little eye something that is white.”

“Is it the snow?” Erin asks dryly.

“Shit, sure is,” Holtz says, glancing at her with a grin.

Erin can’t help but laugh.

“You know,” she says, “as much as I love Abby and Patty, I’m glad that you’re the one I’m stuck doing this with.”

“I feel like you’ll come to regret saying that, Gilbert,” Holtz says with amusement. “You’ve never spent five hours locked in a confined space with me.”

“It’s not going to be five hours.”

“It may very well be five hours.”

 

They clear the intersection. They’ve now been gone for 45 minutes.

“At what point do we consider turning back?” Erin murmurs.

“It’s not that easy,” Holtz says, looking out the window. “I think if we wanted to, we should’ve turned onto Hudson and looped back around.”

“So we’ve committed, now.”

Holtz grins. “Well, we’re not _that_ stuck. But I feel like we’ve emotionally committed to this.”

Erin shakes her head. “All I can say is that the two of us had better take home 100% of the money we make off this bust.”

“If the ghost hasn’t taken off by the time we make it out there.”

Erin groans. “Don’t even say that. Could you imagine?”

“I’m sure she’d still pay us for our trouble.”

“That’s not the point.”

They keep inching forward until they make it another block.

“Do you want to turn back?” Holtz asks.

“No,” Erin says firmly. “Let’s keep going.”

“Righty-o, boss,” Holtz says. “Only one more block to go until West.”

 

West St. is a nightmare.

They’ve been gone for over an hour, now. It’s starting to get dark.

As they wait patiently to turn right, they watch a car skid and slide into another one. Not going fast even remotely, but out of control all the same. There’s already another accident in the middle of the intersection, a minor fender-bender.

“This is insane,” Erin murmurs. “Why are we out in this? We could be back at the firehouse, watching movies with the others. Screw that woman and her money. She can suck it up and deal with the ghost for another day.”

“Don’t despair,” Holtz says. “I’ll get us there safe and sound.”

They slowly inch around the corner. Everywhere they look, there’s another car off to the side of the street with its hazards on.

“Super glad I put winter tires on this puppy last week,” Holtz says. “I have a feeling not many people are in the same boat.”

“The forecast did _not_ call for this much snow,” Erin says. “This is ridiculous. Why didn’t they tell us it would be this much?”

“Who, the weather gods?”

“They’re called meteorologists.”

“Are you implying that meteorologists control the weather?” Holtz grins.

“That’s not what—oh, shut up. I’m cold and hungry and irritated.”

“I think there’s a Twinkie in the glove compartment,” Holtz says.

“That’s not food.”

Holtz shrugs. “If you don’t want it, I’ll eat it.”

“No, no, I want it.” Erin opens the glove compartment and rummages around until she finds the plastic package. She tears it open and offers one of the Twinkies to Holtz.

Holtz takes it, and they clink them together as a toast. Actually clink them. With an audible noise.

“I think they’re a little frozen,” Holtz says.

“I’m eating it anyway,” Erin says, taking a bite of the offending pastry and nearly breaking her tooth in the process.

“Careful, now, we should probably ration our only food. Save some for later in case we get stranded.”

“Don’t,” Erin warns. “Don’t say that. You’ll jinx it. Don’t tempt fate.”

 

They keep driving. The sun sets. They watch another car lose control and hit the meridian. They keep going.

After almost two hours on the road, they come to a dead stop. They can see hazy emergency lights somewhere in the distance.

They don’t move at all for ten minutes.

“Bad accident?” Holtz guesses.

“Must be,” Erin says. “Or at least one that’s blocking the street.”

Holtz shifts into park.

They can’t make out much of anything through the thick white and the dark. The snow continues to gust in every direction.

“Do you like the snow?” Holtz asks abruptly.

Erin snorts, able to see her breath puff out in the cold air as she does so. “You’re really asking that question right now?”

Holtz smiles. “What about when you were a kid? All kids like playing in the snow, right?”

Erin shakes her head. “Not me.”

“What did you do in the winter to keep yourself busy, then?”

“Hid, mostly,” Erin admits. “Often with a book. Sometimes not.”

“Hid from the snow?”

“From the snow, from the cold…” She hesitates. “From my classmates, from my parents…”

Holtz winces. “Right. Shit childhood award. Sorry for bringing it up.”

“What about you?” Erin asks, eager to get the subject off her. “I’m guessing you liked the snow.”

“Oh, hell yeah. Me and my siblings would build massive forts with tunnels and shit. One time we piled up so much snow that we were able to create a hill that went all the way up to the second-floor balcony.” She pauses. “Our parents were not very happy. But! We did manage to each get in one sledding run from the top before they noticed and dismantled it. In retrospect, they were 100% in line because we very much could have died on that thing, without a doubt, but at the time we were _so_ crushed.”

Erin laughs. “I can picture that so clearly. Little Holtz trying to toboggan down from a second-storey drop and not seeing at all how dangerous it was.”

“Little Jay,” Holtz corrects with a smug smile. “I didn’t pick up Holtzmann until I was in college.”

“Right,” Erin says. “I knew that. Is that really what people called you? Jay?”

“Fuckin’ hated the name Jillian,” Holtz says. “Still do. I made my entire family call me StormLord for a whole year once.”

“ _StormLord?”_

“Yep.”

“Well that’s…something. Better than Ghost Girl.”

“Chosen names always are,” Holtz says wisely.

There are a few seconds of silence except for distance sirens.

“You know we would’ve been friends, right?” Holtz says suddenly. At Erin’s confused gaze, she gestures at her as if that clears it up. “If we knew each other back then. We would’ve been friends.”

Erin smiles, but doesn’t meet Holtz’s eyes. “I don’t think so.”

“I would’ve been friends with you,” Holtz urges. “I wouldn’t have cared about all that crap, or what anyone else was saying about you. I would’ve thought it was cool that you’d seen a ghost. I _still_ do.”

“That’s not really what I meant,” Erin says quietly.

Holtz’s forehead creases as she waits for her to elaborate.

“I wouldn’t have been friends with _you_ ,” Erin explains sadly. “I would’ve been embarrassed by you.”

Holtz’s frown becomes more pronounced. “Are you embarrassed by me now?”

Erin shakes her head quickly. “No. Not now.” She pauses. “When I first met you I was.”

“Oh.” It’s nothing new, something Holtz has experienced many many times in her life, but she never expected it from Erin. It stings a little.

“But that’s because I cared so much about what people thought of me,” Erin blurts quickly. “I was so hyper-aware of what people thought—and I wanted you to be, too. But you weren’t. You didn’t give a crap. My brain couldn’t quite…comprehend that.”

Erin stares straight out the front windshield and fiddles with her hands.

“I’m not like that anymore,” she adds. “Now I don’t care either—about what people think of me or about what people think of you. Now, I’m proud and incredibly lucky to be your friend. And as for all of your…” She hesitates, searching for the word.

“Weirdness?” Holtz supplies.

Erin smiles. “Your weirdness is one of the things that I love most about you.”

Her cheeks pink on the word.

“Well, shucks. I think that’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me, Gilbert,” Holtz cracks, but she really does appreciate the sentiment. She’s just not too good at accepting compliments without turning it into a joke.

Erin opens her mouth to say something else, but then she notices something out the windshield. “Oh, we’re moving again!”

Holtz rubs her hands together, partly in excitement and partly to warm up her stiff fingers. She shifts into drive again and presses down on the gas.

A few seconds pass.

“Ah.”

Erin looks at her. “What?”

Holtz leans on the gas more. The engine revs.

There’s the unmistakable sound of tires spinning out.

“Well,” Holtz says, putting her foot back on the brake and settling back in her seat, “that’s not good.”

“Are we _stuck?”_

“It’s possible that we’ve been sitting in one place for too long, yes,” Holtz says, not sounding worried at all.

“We’re stuck,” Erin repeats, trying not to panic.

“My dearest Erin, wonderful, talented, beautiful Erin…” Holtz ventures.

“No. _No.”_ Erin looks at her with wide eyes. “I know what you’re going to say. _No.”_

Holtz smiles. “You’re gonna have to get out and push.”

“ _No.”_

“Okay,” Holtz says simply. “We can sleep here. This vehicle was actually designed for horizontal bodies: did you know that?”

“ _Stop.”_

“Sorry, Er,” Holtz says. “You gotta.”

“Why can’t _you?”_

“Because my baby needs a gentle touch,” Holtz says, stroking the dashboard lovingly. “She’s going to need some words of encouragement from her favourite driver.”

“There is _no_ way that she likes you better than the rest of us. You drive her like she’s a bomb that’ll go off if you don’t go double the speed limit at all times.”

“She _is_ a bomb. A bomb _shell_.” Holtz leans down to kiss the steering wheel. “And in a very more real sense, she is very much so an actual nuclear bomb when she’s in the wrong hands. I’m just doing my part to minimize city-wide destruction, Erin.”

“You _are_ the wrong hands,” Erin spits as she tugs her hat down over her ears, her scarf up over her mouth, and cracks the door open angrily.

A flurry of snow immediately whooshes into the car and she lets it attack Holtzmann before she slams the door shut again. She trudges around the back of the car. Somebody behind them leans on their horn. She flips them off.

She doesn’t have mittens or gloves, not having expected when she left her apartment this morning that they’d be facing this much snow today. Or that she’d have to stand out in it and push the Ecto from a snowdrift.

Holtz has her window open, leaning out of it. Snowflakes collect on her arm. She looks back at Erin. “Okay, on the count of three, I’m going to hit the gas and you’re going to push.”

“Three,” Erin says difficultly, unwilling to wait, and braces against the car, pushing with all her weight.

The engine revs. The tires squeal and spin. Erin kicks as much snow out of the way with her boot as she can. Holtz continues to hit the accelerator. Snow clings to the thin fabric of Erin’s jumpsuit, the only layer between the cold and her legs. She should’ve worn her jeans underneath it today. At least she’s wearing her winter jacket, so her top half is protected from the weather.

“It’s the ice,” Erin shouts over the wind. Her feet are slipping on it, too. She can’t get a grip on the slippery road and neither can the tires.

“Come back inside,” Holtz shouts back.

Erin doesn’t need to be told twice. She walks back around the car as fast as she can without falling and gets back inside, shuddering in the cold. Holtz cranks her window back up.

Erin is shaking. The snow on her lower half is soaking through. Her legs are completely numb. Her hands are purple and so locked up that she can’t even flex her fingers.

Holtz notices. She carefully takes both of Erin’s hands in hers and holds them up to her mouth, exhaling warmly on them and rubbing them in an effort to get the blood moving through them again.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “That was definitely my fault. I should’ve known that wouldn’t work.”

“It was worth a shot,” Erin grumbles. She takes back her hands from Holtz and tries to brush off some of the lingering snow on her legs.

“I have another idea,” Holtz says, “to deal with the ice.”

Erin eyes her warily. “Please tell me it’s not to shoot at the ice with our proton packs until it melts.”

“No, of course not, that would be crazy.” Holtz’s eyes twinkle. “We’re going to use the blowtorch that’s kicking around in the back seat.”

“Of course we are,” Erin groans.

 

Holtz climbs between their seats and hangs down, trying to find the blowtorch amidst the piles of junk on the floor back there.

“I feel like we probably should not be driving around with a loose blowtorch rolling around back there,” Erin says.

“Let’s not open that can of ecto-worms,” Holtz says. “There’s all sorts of stuff that we _probably_ shouldn’t be driving around with in this car.”

“What the hell is an ecto-worm?”

Holtz looks over her shoulder with a grin. “Oh, didn’t I tell you?”

“More biology experiments?”

“Hey, I’m doing it for you. I gotta know if there are any extended effects of being regularly submerged in ectoplasm.”

“What’s the verdict?”

“The worms love the stuff,” Holtz says, turning her attention back to digging around. “They love to _eat_ the stuff.”

“Have _you_ eaten the stuff?”

“Of course not.”

“You’re lying.”

Holtz looks back over her shoulder with a smirk, then holds up the blowtorch victoriously. “Et voila.”

Erin gestures tiredly. “Go on, then. This one is all you.”

“With pleasure,” Holtz says, pulling her goggles down over her eyes.

 

She slides back into the car several minutes later.

“Well?”

“I melted the ice,” Holtz says.

“Seriously? Yay! That’s—”

“I also melted the tire.”

There are several long seconds.

“I’m going to kill you,” Erin says very seriously.

“Understood,” Holtz says. “Before you do, though—or before the storm overtakes us and we freeze to death—admit that we would’ve been friends when we were kids.”

“Do _not_ try to distract me, Holtzmann.”

“I’m not. It’s my dying wish. Admit it.”

“It was the truth, Holtz. I would’ve been embarrassed by you. I’m sorry to say it, but it’s true.”

Holtz wags her finger. “Nuh uh. If I could change your perception of me this time, I could’ve done it back then too. Trust me. We would’ve been friends.”

“Fine,” Erin allows. “We would’ve been friends.”

“You woulda loved Mount Holtzmann.”

“I thought you didn’t go by Holtzmann back then?”

Holtz gives her a look. “It’s my last name, Erin. It may be hard to believe, but half of my siblings had a claim on it at the time too. Thus we christened our sledding monstrosity Mount Holtzmann.”

“Only half of them?”

“We had a Brady Bunch situation going on,” Holtz says, wiggling her fingers like that illustrates her point. “My dad plus three hooligan Holtzmanns. My stepmom plus three devious Danielses.”

“Three boys and three girls?” Erin jokes.

“Unbelievably, yes. When we met we thought it was two to four, but then Ricky announced that he had never been a girl to begin with, so we ended up with me and my two sisters and then the three Daniels brothers after all. Unreal, right?”

Erin shakes her head with amusement, then swallows. “What happened to your mom?”

“She jumped off a cliff,” Holtz says.

Erin covers her mouth. “Oh my god, Holtz, I’m so s—”

“Cliff diving,” Holtz continues without missing a beat. “She decided to go follow her passion of extreme sports. Total adrenaline junkie.” Her eyes sparkle. “Wonder where I got it from?”

Erin swats her arm. “That was a _terrible_ choice of words, Holtz!”

Holtz winks.

“So she’s alive, then?” Erin asks.

“Either that or her ghost is doing a damn good job of sending us Christmas cards every year.”

“You still talk to her?”

“Oh, yeah. We see her a handful of times a year, too, when she’s back in the country. She didn’t abandon us or anything. I probably should’ve mentioned that her and my dad had already broken up before she took off, and he already had full custody of us. We’ve never held it against her. It was the right call: she was never really suited to the motherhood lifestyle.”

“Then why’d she have kids?”

“Accident,” Holtz says with a grin. “Isn’t that fitting? Jillian Holtzmann, professional Accident, spectacularly fantastic at inciting accidents herself.”

“Your parents had three children by accident?” Erin asks. “Did they…not believe in contraception?”

“Well it was just the _one_ accident,” Holtz clarifies. “They weren’t _that_ unlucky.” She looks up at the roof of the car thoughtfully. “Or they were the _most_ unlucky, depending on how you look at it.”

“What do you mean?” Erin frowns, then pieces it together. “Wait, are you—”

“One of three?” Holtz holds up three fingers. “Identical triplets, baby.”

Erin stares her, eyes wide. “You’re telling me that there are two other women identical to you wandering around this planet right now?”

“Your face just lit up, Gilbert. Do you have some sort of clone fetish that I should know about?”

Erin makes a disgusted face. “Jesus, Holtz. _No._ I’m just amazed. I can’t even picture it.”

Holtz lifts a finger and roots around in her pocket to produce her (very cold) phone, then hunts around on it until she finds a photo. She turns the screen to Erin.

Erin takes the phone into her own hands like old people do, and zooms in. “Holy _shit._ ”

“Can you tell which one is me?”

Erin holds the phone so close to her face that it’s comical. “I…” She zooms in further, sliding from face to face. “Yes,” she says after a minute, confidently. “You’re in the middle.”

“Atta girl,” Holtz says. “What gave it away? Our own parents can’t even get that right sometimes.”

“Just the little things,” Erin says, handing the phone back. She slowly, hesitantly, reaches out to touch Holtz’s face just below her eye. “You’ve got a tiny scar right here.”

Holtz swallows. “Sure do. You could see that in the photo?”

“I knew what to look for,” Erin says. Her cold hand is still lingering on Holtz’s face. “It was also your eyes.”

“We all have the same eyes,” Holtz says.

“Not you,” Erin says with a small shake of her head. “It’s not what they look like: it’s what’s in them.”

“That’s very poetic,” Holtz says softly.

They both exhale at the same time, their breath visible in the air between them.

That’s when they both seem to remember where they are and what started this conversation. Erin quickly pulls her hand from Holtz’s face.

“So,” Erin says, voice tense, “you melted the tire.”

Holtz clears her throat. “Sure did.”

“What does that mean?”

“It meeaaans…” Holtz looks out the window at the cars inching around them. “It means we have two options. We can wait here until the snow stops and the traffic clears, and call a tow truck…which would likely take hours…”

“What’s the other option?”

“We could ditch the car and walk back to HQ.”

Erin winces.

“It’s not far,” Holtz promises. “Probably only about ten minutes from here, actually. That’s how little we’ve moved.”

“And what, leave our equipment in the car?”

Now it’s Holtz’s turn to wince. “Yeah. It’s safer inside the car than on our backs in the snow, although either way, the cold is gonna do some damage.”

“What about the damage the cold is going to do to us?” Erin mutters.

“Ten minutes,” Holtz repeats. “We won’t get hypothermia. It’ll be mildly unpleasant at worst.”

“Mildly unpleasant my ass,” Erin says. “Fine. I guess we don’t really have a choice.”

“We could wait here,” Holtz reminds her.

Erin gazes out the window. “For what? You’re right: it’s going to be hours before we get out of this mess. It’s already—” She checks her watch— “almost 7:00pm.”

She sighs, long and disgruntled.

“I can’t stress enough how close we are to the firehouse right now,” Holtz says.

Erin tightens her scarf around her neck again with a forlorn expression.

Holtz tugs off her fingerless gloves and hands them to Erin. “Here. These won’t help much, but it’s better than nothing.”

Erin takes them, clutching them tightly before looking up at Holtz with a lump in her throat. “Thanks, Holtz.”

Holtz gives her a half smile. “We’re in this together, Gilbert.”

Erin fits the gloves over her hands and flips her hood up. “Okay. Let’s go.”

 

They have their elbows linked as they walk in order to keep each other from falling, their heads bent and braced against the wind and the snow whipping at their faces. They trudge along the sidewalk, both silently cursing the weather gods.

It takes them about fifteen minutes to make it back to the firehouse and burst inside to the mayor-pays-their-heating-bill warmth within.

“You can have the first hot shower,” Holtz says instantly.

“Really? Thank you,” Erin says. Her cheeks are bright red from the cold.

They kick off their boots and leave them in an unceremonious pile with their coats, scarves, and hats.

“Finally,” Abby says from the top of the stairs. “Difficult bust?”

“Are you kidding me?” Erin waves her arms wildly. “Have you _looked_ outside?”

“We made it five blocks from here,” Holtz says. “Lost the Ecto. Walked back.”

“ _What?”_

“Did you just say you lost the Ecto?” Patty shouts from the third floor. She has superhuman hearing.

The two of them climb the stairs, first to the lab where Abby is waiting, then up to the third floor.

“It was a storm casualty,” Holtz replies grimly.

“Holtz melted the tires with a blowtorch,” Erin corrects, halfway to the bathroom.

“ _What?”_ Abby and Patty say in unison.

Holtz strips out of her freezing, soaked jumpsuit and lets it slump to the floor, stepping over it. She doesn’t have any shame changing in front of the others: it’s nothing they haven’t seen before, especially considering the four of them live together now (ever since they discovered they could live at the firehouse rent-free and also realized how sporadic and inconvenient ghost calls are). She ducks into her room and grabs the duvet off her bed, wrapping it around her body and over her head like a hood, then waddles back out into the common area. She can already hear the shower running.

“We got stuck,” she explains with a whine. “What was I to do?”

“How bad _is_ it out there?” Patty asks, twisted around with her arms folded on the back of the couch.

“You seriously don’t know?”

“We’ve been watching movies,” Abby says. “Haven’t checked the news.”

“It’s a goddamn mess out there,” Holtz says. “Hence why we’ve been gone for four hours and we only made it five blocks.”

Abby and Patty exchange a glance.

“We sent Kevin home,” Patty says slowly.

Holtz sucks her teeth. “Oh no. No, no, no. Poor boy won’t last a minute out there. He’s probably already a Kevinsicle.”

“I’ll call him,” Abby says. “And I’ll call what’s-her-name and tell her that her ghost problem will have to wait until tomorrow. I bet I can convince her that we have to charge her for the hours you spent trying to get out there.”

Holtz pulls her blanket tighter around her body and steps up to the couch to listen in on the movie playing on the TV. “Glad you two have had a cozy evening here while we were out there risking our lives.”

“Don’t be dramatic,” Patty says as she turns back to face the TV. “You were stuck in a car with Erin. There are worse ways to spend a few hours.”

“Very true,” Holtz says.

 

When Erin steps out from the bathroom half an hour later, a cloud of steam escaping with her, she sees Abby, Patty, and Holtz lined up on the couch together, backs to her.

Abby turns her head, one finger to her lips, and nods her head past Patty. Erin knows exactly what that means. Holtz falls asleep on the couch all the time. It’s what happens when you don’t have a regular sleep schedule.

Erin retreats into her room to get changed into sweatpants and her MIT hoodie, tugging a set of fleecy socks over her feet before ambling back into the living room. The other three are watching some sort of goofy children’s Christmas movie, probably a Netflix original. Even though Erin is adamantly one of those Not-Until-December-1st people who loses a year off her life every time she hears a Christmas song playing in a store in November, she still wedges herself beside Holtz on the couch to join them.

Holtz’s head immediately lolls from Patty’s shoulder to Erin’s, sleepily adjusting to curl into her side with a little yawn.

“Anyone want hot chocolate?” Abby asks, getting up from the couch.

If Holtz were a dog, her ear would be standing in the air. “Always,” she says.

Erin looks down at her. “I thought you were asleep.”

Holtz hums.

Erin, now less concerned about waking her up, wiggles her arm behind Holtz’s back and around her, which is far more comfortable than the squished position it was in before. She doesn’t answer Abby’s question, because she knows she’ll make enough for the four of them whether they want it or not. That’s who Abby Yates is.

Sure enough, she comes back a few minutes later balancing four mugs, which she doles out to each of them. Holtz doesn’t really move or sit up, just takes her mug and holds it to her mouth, immediately burning her tongue as she takes a gulp.

She has yet to shower (and probably won’t), so the warmth feels good as it travels down through her body. Erin is warm, too. That’s helping.

Their snowstorm adventure earlier already feels like a billion years ago. She can distantly hear the wind outside, but she’s far away from it and cozy and doesn’t care. She tries not to think about the poor Ecto out there freezing solid with their equipment inside. That’s a tomorrow problem.

Erin blows on her hot chocolate, still not having taken a sip. Holtz is already halfway done hers.

“I don’t need taste buds,” she announces before any of them can comment on it.

Patty shakes her head.

Erin stretches forward to put her mug on the coffee table and wait for it to cool down. Holtz chugs the rest of hers.

“Mine too?” she asks sweetly.

Erin rolls her eyes but takes Holtz’s empty mug and sets it on the coffee table beside hers. They’re a matching set, actually. Gifts from Patty. _Friends-_ themed: Erin’s says _Princess Consuela Banana Hammock_ and Holtz’s says _Crap Bag_. They’re both big fans of the show. The two of them have spent entire weekend binge watching full seasons before.

When she settles back into the couch, Holtz squirms even closer, more in her lap than anything at this point. Erin’s fingers tangle absentmindedly and reflexively in her hair, which is slightly deflated and slightly damp as a result of the snow.

Holtz, now resembling a cat more than a dog, continues to hum happily.

When Erin leans forward to grab her hot chocolate mug again a few minutes later, Holtz wraps her arms around her waist and doesn’t let her go.

Erin strains against her hold. “Holtz,” she whines softly.

She finally stretches far enough to grab the mug and then immediately settles back, Holtz still holding her tightly.

Patty looks down at them with a knowing eyebrow raise. Holtz winks up at her.

 

The movie ends. Patty stretches her arms over her head.

“That’s the last one for me,” she says. “I’m gonna go read for the rest of the night.”

Abby stands too and gathers up all their empty mugs. She doesn’t seem to notice them in the same way that Patty does, but she still says that she’s going to head to bed as well.

They’re left with just the two of them, still curled up on the couch. Erin turns the TV off, not really wanting to start anything else.

“I should go to bed too,” she murmurs.

Holtz boos quietly.

“So should you,” Erin reminds her.

“I don’t wanna,” Holtz mumbles. “My bed is gonna be so cold.”

“Stay out here, then,” Erin says.

“Will you stay with me?”

“No. I happen to like my bed.”

Holtz pouts. She clings to Erin as she tries to stand up, only letting go when Erin gently pushes on her wrist.

Despite the heat being on, it’s cold without Holtz’s body heat so close to her. As she crosses the living room towards her bedroom door, she looks back over her shoulder.

“Have a good night, Holtz.”

“You too,” Holtz replies sleepily.

She doesn’t change into her pajamas, electing to sleep in her sweats and hoodie instead to avoid catching a chill while she changes. She shuts her light off and crawls into bed, shuddering once.

It’s less than a minute later when her door swings open, soft light from the living room pooling in. Holtz still has her duvet bunched around her, her face the only thing visible. She looks like a little kid.

She doesn’t even ask anything, nor does she have to.

“Fine,” Erin says with a sigh.

Holtz smiles in the dim light and shuts the door softly behind her, padding across the room and flopping face-first onto the bed ungracefully. She rolls, Erin moving closer to the wall to make room for her.

“So much warmer,” Holtz says happily, face pressed into Erin’s neck.

Erin hums in agreement. She watches the snow fall in a shadow on her wall, captured by a streetlight outside her window. There’s something calming about it.

“Do you think the Ecto is going to be okay?” she asks.

“Maybe,” Holtz says, more awake now. “Maybe not. Hard to tell. I’ll fix it.”

“I’m sure you will,” Erin says. She loops her arm under Holtz again, knowing it’ll probably fall asleep under her weight but not really minding.

“I’m glad it was you,” Holtz says.

“Sorry?”

“I’m glad it was you who I got stuck with,” Holtz clarifies.

“Oh. Same. Even if you made me get out and push the car.”

Holtz chuckles into the dark.

“I can’t stop thinking about your family,” Erin says suddenly. “Your identical sisters. That’s so crazy.”

“I’ll take you to meet them some day,” Holtz says.

“You will?”

“Sure. I’ll take you to meet the whole gang. They’ll love you.”

Erin shifts to face her. “Holtz, are we dating?”

She says it so confidently, so earnestly, that Holtz can only laugh. She smiles against Erin’s chest, then kisses the skin there lightly. “Does it matter?”

“No,” Erin says softly, smile in her voice. “I guess it doesn’t.”

“You were able to pick me out of a photo with my identical sisters because of my _eyes_ ,” Holtz says. “There’s your answer, Gilbert.”

Erin snorts quietly, cutely. “Yeah, alright.”

Holtz opens up her blanket cocoon to let Erin inside it.

“I didn’t realize you weren’t wearing clothes under there,” Erin says. “No wonder you were cold.”

“Problem?”

“No,” Erin murmurs, running her hand up Holtz’s stomach to land just over her heart. “Not at all.”

“Excellent,” Holtz says, sounding sleepy again. “G’night, Gilbert.”

“Goodnight, StormLord,” Erin says wryly, but tenderly.

Holtz laughs quietly, and she’s still laughing as she drifts off to sleep, and outside the snow continues to fall steadily and blanket the city, and it’s all okay.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> [Come talk to me on Tumblr!](http://jillbert.tumblr.com) I always post this and I feel like people think it's just self-promotion when really it's me being very lonely and asking people to be my friend. AnYWAY


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